Darkwood Dub – Robot
The Jukebox makes its first-ever excursion into the world of Serbian pop and pulls out this…
[Video][Website]
[6.25]
Martin Kavka: Serbians who sound half like The Smiths, and half like Pop-era U2. My Serbian sucks too hard to be able to tell if they’re celebrating technology or criticizing it. They’re all wearing black in their photos; could go either way.
[5]
Iain Mew: Starts off as a pleasant airy groove (with a hint of that dub) with slightly ill-fitting gruff vocals on top. Then, and this is the great part, the singer gradually gets sped up and cut up and transformed into the robot of the title until eventually all we have is echoey distant noises that might possibly be fragments of words and match perfectly to the dreamy atmosphere. Then our human springs back in and we go through the whole process a second time. Why not?
[7]
Ian Mathers: At first I was a little irked by the goofy vocal processing during the chorus (and the band’s name), but I came around after watching the band goof with it during the videos. And really, aside from that there’s very little to dislike about this thickly maximalist, vaguely danceable track – Serbian is a great language to shout in, it turns out, and the way they constantly pile on layers of drums, bass, keyboards, guitars, etc. is very satisfying. A minor but definite pleasure, and appealingly goofy.
[7]
Martin Skidmore: It’s pleasant enough, bubbling along with lush sounds overlaying the beats, but the vocals do nothing for me (the problem I have with a lot of electro music these days) and I have no idea what it’s about, bar the standard territory implied by the title. I wish it were a bit funkier or lovelier or the singing were less dreary, as it sounds in reach of being something I’d like, but it just misses.
[4]
M. H. Lo: Despite/Because the melody of this sounds like Antigone’s dance track from last year, “More Man Than Man”, let’s fantasize: in an alternative world, five years from now, a Serbian filmmaker will win an Oscar for Best Animated Short, and end his acceptance speech by saying, “Robotay-eh-eh-eh-teh!” And every viewer will dig the allusion to the Darkwood Dub song, because it will have been a giant hit across the globe, the 21st century version of “Mr. Roboto”. Is this alternative world a better world? It’s sort of a 6 out of 10 world.
[6]
Additional Scores
John M. Cunningham: [7]
Doug Robertson: [7]
Hazel Robinson: [7]